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Dear Readers and Writers, You may or may not know that I have a deep affinity for Latin American culture, and art in particular, and am moved by the intensity and variety of creativity. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel to both Peru and Colombia, and Mexico is the home of my heart, my favourite place in all the world. I spend quite a bit of my art history passion in Latin American paintings, sculptures, and photography, both pre-Colombian and post. Clearly, many share the excitement and emotion I feel in Hispanic art, because challenges for Frida Kahlo and others received a huge response. I was surprised that this much quieter Peruvian painting opened the floodgates, too. I had such a wonderful time reading through a surprising number of submissions- I love how much poetry and fiction one painting can inspire. I have included many pieces here. I always feel guilty for those wonderful responses I didn't include. For every selection, so many more are turned away! Please understand how grateful we are for your participation. Knowing that my passion for art inspires you means the world to me even when I can't include your work this time. love, Lorette  Women Making Textiles, by Mario Urteaga Alvarado (Peru) 1939 ora et labora toil and spin we begin wool, stone cloth and bone fibers break fingers ache scarlet thread daily bread sisters bend knots end warp and weft right, left kneel and weep till and keep the slanted ladder forms a stair work is prayer Kelly Scott Franklin Kelly Scott Franklin teaches literature at Hillsdale College. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Commonweal, Driftwood, Thimble Literary Magazine, Iowa City Poetry in Public, and elsewhere. Gifts From Pachamama "When the doors of the storehouse opened, Clouds flew out like birds..." Ecclesiastes How must it feel to be so high in the Andes that the sky touches the horizon with mountain tops in the background? The women who are making textiles seem to be unchanged by the 20th century, dedicated to recreating the patterns of the Incas the herring-bone in red and gold. And though the women's lips don't move in Alvarado's painting -- are immobile, part of a formidable silence at high altitudes do they pray, in quietude, to the inner earth, and to the outer earth blessing their materials and their craft; and to the sun, the moon, the wind, the lightning, and the rain; for the rain god to delay his gift of precipitation if winter ((May to September) fattens the clouds by mistake during the dry season -- so it won't rain, and the textile workers can continue their work outside, in natural light weaving threads in madder yellow and the earthy-ochre of a thick zig-zagging pathway. One woman in the painting has climbed down a ladder from the storehouse where ritual elements -- hummingbird feathers and sequins like the shining lake -- are saved in small baskets until the month when they're added to the textiles as sacred decoration for a fire offering; strands woven to be burned to honor the sun god -- a culture hero -- during ceremonies to Pachamama -- Mother Earth.... The woman who climbed down the ladder was wearing a hat with a wide-brim that acknowledges authority, and power -- the hat covering her head contained thoughts: if you change your hat you must change your mind, an old woman reading coca leaves told her describing a future where she would travel down the mountain to the fenced-in pens filled with guinea pigs where there was a caretaker who -- it was said -- could make miracles; would choose and weigh two healthy guinea pigs. Do not roast them -- he would caution her -- even if you are very hungry. They are the day god's magic totems. You must put one of them in each of the hands of your small son so he can feel how their fur is soft -- softer than coarse black hair -- how their hearts beat in their bodies -- faster than his own heart's comforting thump. Everything you do, down the mountain must please the gods of night and day who have argued so the night god has made your boy blind; but the god of daylight who speaks with the wisdom of Pachamama sees all colors in darkness, in the beautiful, black, unseeing eyes of the boy who she promises will feel color when his fingertips recognize the power of animals as he touches the guinea pigs -- 1 and 2.... So it was that the boy's mother went back to work and took off her wide-brimmed hat. She set it down, carefully behind her on the rough ground of the courtyard in the painting and picked up the herring-bone textile, touching each diamond and chevron like it was a magic stone, one of Pachamama's amulets -- measuring its length, its sturdiness and its strength -- woven long enough so she can dress her child in handmade cloth and wrap-him-round in herring-bone; so she can carry him like a part of her -- a cocoon -- secure against her body for his first trip, her lips near his ears as she whispers the size and shape of everything she sees using words for color; this, the miracle man, the day god and the fortune reader promise is the Pachamama's gift -- nature's way of giving second sight. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp once tried to take her children to Macchu Picchu to see Haley's Comet, coming for a second time in Hirohito's lifetime, but the trip was economically impossible, and she lost a large deposit to the Natural Science Museum. The atmosphere and high altitude of the Andes must be mystical, and although the herring-bone of the textile being made by the Peruvian women in Alvarado's painting is an "everyday" pattern, different from the bright designs in festival fabrics, the mystery of the Incas, and the voices of their nature gods, surely whisper where mothers weave long "belts" to wrap around their babies to secure the child's position when being carried. ** Too Late to Pray It’s too late to pray so we sift through the fabric and weave of our ancestry trying to forge a new history where we have meaning and a name where we’re not slurs or shell casings where the same rain that falls on your head lands just the same on ours no more sprayed bullets or crimson on the corner no more sons and daughters dying in vain while each momma screams and wails screams and wails screams and wails screams and wails as one bloody day bleeds into the very next Len Kuntz Len Kuntz is a writer from Washington State and the author of four books, most recently the story collection, THIS IS WHY I NEED YOU, out now from Ravenna Press. You can find more of his writing at http://lenkuntz.blogspot.com ** Shadows in La Plaza Three sisters in the afternoon sun intricate lines on lines diamonds in their hands shoulders lean backs ache but the work goes on each weaving her own message as the pattern stretches across the hot sand the sun passes over the work a knife. Three shadows cross my soul bending, bowing over the work strong faces, hands the fingerweaving passes silent among them. Three fates as dusk nears the weaving crosses the silent plaza but eyes watch from the shadows eyes wait. The one who had begun lets the threads slip from bent fingers the one who had continued holds knowingly story is all the one who must cut the thread slight sobbing in the air always the story must end. Carol Lee Saffioti-Hughes Carol Lee Saffioti-Hughes is Professor Emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside; trekker of wild things in the north woods, former librarian in a log cabin library. In addition to academic publications, she has published poetry in Canada, England, the United States and China. Chapbook: The Lost Italian and the Sound of Words, Brighter Path Publishers, and numerous poems in zines and anthologies. ** to make a ladder we must weave what is between the rungs with fingers we have not always had here in this world where silence is larger than the steps between, and so we begin as children, choosing words like stitches, placing them on our tongues, behind our lips before we pierce the air with them, pierce the world with them as we do the cloth we weave, one hand holding for the other, one finger kissing another, the needle sharp as a tongue can be, a tongue we know, a tongue we do not yet know, both wrestling words into angles and stripes that can sear or save us, yes save us too as they are stitched into our ears, our cloth, stitch by stitch, to leave a long line of words dripped or stripped from our lips, our tongues, to be stitched again to suit or wound around our necks, to show what steps we make between red and no, between a hat and the blue sky of winter in the story of we, of me, of who I am, I am. Mary Hutchins Harris Mary Hutchins Harris is a poet and essayist. Her work has appeared in Tar River Poetry, Kakalak, Antietam Review, Main Street Rag, Poemeleon, The Ekphrastic Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Spillway, Seeking: Poetry and Prose inspired by Jonathan Green, and Feminine Rising: Voice of Power and Invisibility, as well as in other print and on-line publications. She is an Interdisciplinary Studies Adjunct professor in the Lesley University, Cambridge, MA Low-Residency MFA program and on the faculty of the YMCA Downtown Writer's Center in Syracuse, NY . ** The Homecoming Our dead husband Amuru will return tonight. Five months of mourning, tonight we will celebrate. Drum beats will resound, rocks ring with ancient chants. November, the month of the dead. The young men will carry their Kuraka, head of the clan, shoulder high. I, Chasca, his youngest wife, will drape his mummified body with the scarf. My fingers travel over the fabric, baby alpaca and vicuna fleece, cool and soft as the cloud forests. Smooth burnished orange shimmering with gold thread inlay, old marks honouring the sun god Inti. The underside is a mirror image, but embroidered with the protecting eye. Pisco and Atoc work to my left, heads bowed. Atoc scans the material for imperfections, silent as the fox for which she was named. Pisco sings as she works, lullabies for the babies she never birthed. We have prepared cakes of maize and lamb's blood, shaped and cooked in the fire pit at sunrise. We cried for Amuru when the sky glowed crimson, and moon dipped to the dawn. We will cry no more. I feel the flutter, butterfly wings beating, deep inside. I move my hand to rest on the curve of my belly, and smile. The priest, from The Sacred Valley has foreseen a boy to take his father’s place. He has seen in the fire that he will lead the new rebellion. A black condor waits, watching, black against terracota, priestly collar radiating white. My fingers grope for the strip of leather round my neck. It holds the silver crucifix, brand of the conqueror. Tearing it from my throat, I throw it to the dust and spit. Tonight the purple chica will stain our lips, the flames flitter and lick, and shadows spin in air drunk with balsam spice. Dancing, chanting, cadence climbing, life and death will combine, creeping from the earth to the High-Priest’s ray-splayed disc. Crouched on the cliff the condor waits, ready to swoop and feast on the carrion. Margaret Timoney Margaret Timoney writes from Donegal, on the North West coast of Ireland. ** Braided Bonds It was another monotonous day. The trio sat side by side, Working in silence, For their hearts could read Each other’s thoughts. The sturdy thread in their hands Preserved each unspoken word: Apathy, sincerity, and loyalty… Meticulously woven into the fabric, Disguised as creative patterns. Their devotion to their craft Muffled any questions and Stifled any curiosities That a different life was Within their grasp. Erika Bodden Erika Bodden is of Colombian and Peruvian descent, grew up in Pittsburgh, and currently lives in Tampa, Florida. Consequently, she is a loyal Steelers fan for life, but also a Bucs fan! In addition to writing, her hobbies include activities associated with nature, music, art, and fitness. My must-haves in life include: sunshine, coffee, dogs, music, and Star Trek. ** Tapestry They wanted the work to illustrate their lives, the rich tapestry of the lives they lived. They chose the colours carefully sometimes rich and vibrant, sometimes dark just like life. They wove them into zig zag patterns up and down, up and down. They thought it seemed true, true to life. They wove the cloth longer longer and longer used all the warp and reached the end. It seemed true, true to life. Lynn White Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com///www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/ ** Church Faces rapt and inward, their long band of cloth lies obedient in hand after hand, then loops over an arm, as a trinity of women adore. Two are on their knees in a liturgy of weavers’ worship. One presides, luminous and absorbed, chief celebrant of their ritual by which design is divined through laced thread and play of color: holy light and eye’s power blend tones and surprise, but the women, silent – revere not by word but by finger-tip and thumb: they see the beautiful with their fingers. What have they made? Perhaps, trim for chieftain’s cape, sash for queen’s tunic, stole for a priest’s vestment. We are not told. Their hands enfold the sacred. That is enough to know. Johanna Caton Johanna Caton, O.S.B., is a Benedictine nun and lives in England: she is an American and lived in the U.S. until adulthood, when her monastic vocation took her to the U. K. Her poems have appeared in The Christian Century, The Windhover Literary Journal, The Green Hills Literary Lantern, on The Catholic Poetry Room webpage at www.integratedcatholiclife.org, and in other venues, both online and print. ** Dream Weavers I climb the ladder to my roof and watch my mother and her sisters weave together the dreams of the village. They work quietly in the dry heat, their fingers stained with red clay. In the mornings they take turns braiding each other’s hair before the sun comes up. Three strands to make a bond that will last until dusk. What else can they do but create. Their fingers, like hips, send forth a unique design that will ripple through time and space. For the small boy next door, whose smile is a flash of light behind his dirt-streaked face, they build him a well with clean water. Better yet, a boat that could take him north, to the rich mountains, or up into the clouds. Whichever he prefers. For his mother, whose ankle has swelled to the size of her knee, who leans heavily on a stick carved from the Cinchona tree, a throne fit for a queen. A doctor to perform the simple operation that would stop her senseless pain. I ask my mother what she wants but she says nothing. She is the weaver. She can only give. She is the heart, her sisters are the brain and the stomach. They are one person. They need only the air to summon their stitch. To carry the prayers of the night whisperers to their rooms so that they wake with heads full of colour. This band, this red cloth covered in diamonds, this is their spine, the backbone that holds them together. If one sister pricks her finger on the fibers, they all bleed. Like the elements, they can’t exist without each other. They are earth, and air, and water. I’m thirteen. My fingers are starting to itch. I feel the flames dance in my chest and move my body into patterns. I braid my hair like theirs, take the basket of fabrics into the house every evening. I watch them from the window. Brown hair flowing in waves under the moonlight. I hear the water splashing, see it flying through the air between them. Their laughter echoes far beyond the village, and into the night. Kerri Vasilakos Kerri Vasilakos is a writer from Long Island, New York who is currently living in Georgia. She earned her BA in English- Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University and has had her poems featured in their Creative Writing Clubs Newsletters. Kerri also owns a spiritual counseling business with her fiancé that focuses on holistic healing and energy work. She has a deep faith, and a passion for guiding others along their healing journey. Kerri is also a gifted artist and a cat lover. Her poems have been featured in the Penman Review. ** Stitch by Stitch With heavy eyelids, concentrating, slow, they scrutinise the cloth to check each thread from altar runner, blanket, quilt and bedspread to clothes for all from chullo cap to toe. Too much the same? Too many knots and rows? Their hands grow numb, but backache’s what they dread, they crouch and kneel, collapse and sometimes stop dead, but pick up and continue with the sew. It’s hour by hour – enough to focus on, like how they built their houses brick by brick or how they twist and fasten thin black plaits – one day they’ll wonder where their time has gone. With tired eyes and necks which start to crick, they stitch and count, ascend and leave such tracks. Helen Freeman Helen Freeman has been published on several sites such as Ink, Sweat and Tears, Red River Review, Barren Magazine, The Drabble, Sukoon and The Ekphrastic Review. Her instagram page is @chemchemi.hf. She lives in Durham, England. ** Woven Her first belt. Before daylight fades and clouds slap the mountainside, three women roll out the delicate cloth, hold it firmly over their gnarled fingers, sense its fragility. Section by section, they examine the quality of its pattern, colour, weave, tension; feel the fine alpaca wool. They remember Maria’s little-girl, sing-song voice counting, laughing, teasing, memorising sequences; they imagine that they are helping her once more to master the knack of threading. In a whisper, they discuss who taught her this design. Grandmother, aunt or mother? All lay claim. All played a part, as did every woman in the village: women and girls together; tending the flock; weaving, spinning, singing, playing, sharing and passing on their stories as they crafted, creating their world. That’s how they had all learnt. Though none could match the skill of Maria; from her hands, the next generation were beginning to learn… Years wind back and forth as three women squat and kneel, stretch out on cobbles, ignoring pain; hard as their mountain’s rock, they labour on, eyes downcast; minds, hands, bodies fixed on this task. Dusk falls. A glowering sky; thunder snarls; a distant flash. Breezes whip away old women’s breath, catch their ankles, make the wooden ladder judder, stir up a blur of ground dust. Time: they roll up her belt, carry it inside; ceremoniously unwinding it, they return it to its maker…. lightening - in a flower-filled room her corpse. Dorothy Burrows Based in the United Kingdom, Dorothy Burrows enjoys writing flash fiction, poetry and short plays. This year, her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Spelt Magazine, The Alchemy Spoon, The Poetry Pea Journal, Prune Juice, Failed Haiku and The Wales Haiku Journal. She tweets: @rambling_dot ** Les Souvenirs of Krishan Nagar/Sant Nagar for my Mother, Mona & my Maternal Aunties, Robina and Samina after Women Making Textiles by Mario Urteaga Alvarado (Peru), 1939 C.E. Prosperity that the golden muses gave me was no delusion: dead, I won’t be forgotten. — Sappho[1] I. Summoning the Muse It was time for the due dosage of inspiration for me; hence, The Girls in the respective painting sat exposed on my laptop’s monitor. Whilst I was preoccupied by the thoughts of crafting a poetic- narrative on their activities, The Trio had also managed to engage Mona’s glance, who was merely passing through the dining room en route to the kitchen to mind her housewifery duties and chores. Is it a painting of/from Krishan Nagar/Sant Nagar? – she couldn’t help becoming captivated, they look like Indian Girls from old, old times, are they? … What are they making? II. Nota bene This narration is more a transcription of Mona’s memories than anything else really, and also a tribute to the hardships endured by my parents & their parents & their parents, which have subsequently made it possible for me to sit-on-my-bum rather extremely-comfortably now—id est without a worry in the world—so that I could also indulge in the luxuries of crafting this discourse. III. ! وہ بھی کیا زمانہ تھا؛ وہ بھی کیا وقت تھا / Those were strange, strange times! ! وہ بھی کیا زمانہ تھا؛ وہ بھی کیا وقت تھا (those were strange, strange times!), the avalanche of memories is set in motion: 10 children, your Nana & Nani gave birth to /[2] one of them, boy, was lost to Polio in his infancy / he had golden brown hair and blue eyes / my Dada & Dadi had to unwillingly migrate from Shimla in Himalayas to Lahore, Punjab – long before the partition of the Subcontinent India in 1947 CE /[3] but our great-great grandparents – Eisa Khan & Musa Khan – had migrated from the Central Asia to Hindustan and served in The Great Mughal Turk Empire as Vazirs (Ministers) during the late 18th century CE / ! وہ بھی کیا زمانہ تھا؛ وہ بھی کیا وقت تھا (those were strange, strange times!) / … / back then, Krishan Nagar & Sant Nagar were founded as the Modern Model Towns during the British Raj – a ‘Safe Heaven’ for elites, apparently / and that’s where my grandparents had decided to settle in Lavapuri /[4] but the towns also saw the worst cases of massacres during the 1947 migrations between Baharat and newly born Pakistan – my Dadi used to share horrifying stories of murders, rapes, kidnappings and lootings of the Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs alike / ! وہ بھی کیا زمانہ تھا؛ وہ بھی کیا وقت تھا (those were strange, strange times!) / … / your Nani had taught me & your Khalas[5] how to sew with needles: we weren’t so financially affluent, so had to sew our own clothes using the empty flour-sacks; the thought of buying ready-made clothes didn’t exist even in our wildest imaginations / I had received a first proper gift in my life in the shape of a Singer’s sewing machine from your Nana – a wedding gift / it’s 42+ years old now and is still functional – I am currently using it to sew a new Kurta-Shalwar[6] for your father for the upcoming Eid / your father only lived in the neighbouring borough – Sant Nagar / initially, i got introduced to him through his younger sister – we used to attend the same college / and then, your Nana had become rather fond of him – since he was a Captain in the military and all / yes, it was an arranged marriage / there was a marriage proposal from a business family in the USA, as well, but your Nana wasn’t too comfortable with the idea of giving his favourite daughter’s hand to some stranger a million miles away / we couldn’t even imagine playing with boys in the streets, let alone falling in love with someone from the neighbourhood or outside of the borough and getting married to him / you’ve taken after your Nana – he used to love books and reading and writing, too / ! وہ بھی کیا زمانہ تھا؛ وہ بھی کیا وقت تھا (those were strange, strange times!) / … / we had a similar looking ladder at our house – like this one in this painting / it was made of bamboo – we preferred to use it to climb to the roof-top to play ludo or marbles or cards, us sisters / the staircase was made of mud-bricks and wasn’t really safe to use – after every monsoon, if needed a complete renovation / the roof-top at our house used to especially come to life during the annual Vasanta Kite Flying Season – your Mamus[7] even used to come back home from Germany and Australia and Dubai to attend it / ! وہ بھی کیا زمانہ تھا؛ وہ بھی کیا وقت تھا (those were strange, strange times!) / To Be Continued … Saad Ali Saad Ali (b. 1980 C.E. in Okara, Pakistan) has been educated and brought up in the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is an existential philosopher-poet and translator. Ali has authored four books of poetry. His new collection of poetry is called Prose Poems: Βιβλίο Άλφα(AuthorHouse, 2020). He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. By profession, he is a Lecturer, Consultant, and Trainer/Mentor. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, and Tagore. He is fond of the Persian, Chinese, and Greek cuisines. He likes learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities on foot. To learn more about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com. ** Subversive Textiles It’s not only poetry that can get you arrested, or producing pamphlets against the occupational forces, it’s weaving your traditional weave. At least that’s what we take away from Peruvian history. The Spanish, resenting the competition for their artisans from home, sought to stamp out the production by traditional Peruvian artisans who used vicuña, alpaca… even metallic threads and silk. Peru’s tradition of textile production predates pottery. 10,000 years of the backstrap loom and other techniques handed down from generation to generation. There were complex embroideries and tapestries with deities and monsters; influences of their abstracts can even be gleaned in the Bauhaus school and other 20th century art. In their weaves, the Inka honoured their ancestors and Pachamama—the earth mother— as well as the heavens: the sun, the moon, the stars. If I were a Quechua maiden, the women of my village would gift me the result of months of weaving at my wedding. Today you can buy the most intricate patterns, the most vibrant colours, the most sensual cloths in the markets of which there are plenty. The women of Peru remembered. Rose Mary Boehm Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a Pushcart. Her fourth poetry collection, THE RAIN GIRL, was published by Chaffinch Press in 2020. Want to find out more? https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** Penelope’s Tapestry Wormholes might exist no larger than a grain of sand which could circumvent the laws of space and time. Albert Einstein Thereafter in the daytime she would weave at her great loom, but in the night, she would have torches set by, and undo it. The Odyssey: Book II Lines 104-105
At the excavation of black mud Out upon the tidal flats A sour smell of marsh sulfur Permeates the air As shovels push down Through several seasons of silt And deep within the sodden banks, Milt deposited from upland slopes, The black blood of mountain streams Bled south to harbor’s tongue, They’re upon the earthen throat, A box is drawn out. Hands fall from the sharpened spades Knees push against The swallowing mud, And a fumbling of hands wrenches off A latch, Throwing arched beads of mud Like black pearls Against the digger’s faces That peer in speckled fancy Beneath mud-swept brows; The box is empty.
A wormhole looms, Perambulates upon the tidal flats, As the sweet fragrance of marshmallow Glistens in the hot throat of August And a Singularity pierces the ground And drives on through to the planet’s core Where lost within the molten mantle, Milt from the upland slope, A raw absence of space and time Diffuses in forces unseen till now, There enwombed Within the planet’s arching belly; A loom is inverted. 3. Weave Hands rotate upon the tapered spokes As knees grip against the enclosing center And across the feet of all living creatures A latch is wrenched off And a cover thrown back To reveal the mud-splattered faces Peering down Into the gulping lips of time, As Penelope’s blackened fingers Pull warp from woof Deceiving and awaiting Her husband’s return; The box is filled with wool. Thomas Belton is an author with extensive publications in fiction, poetry, non-fiction, magazine feature writing, science writing, and journalism. His professional memoir, “Protecting New Jersey’s Environment: From Cancer Alley to the New Garden State (Rutgers University Press)” was awarded “Best Book in Science Writing for the General Public” by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. See: https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/protecting-new-jerseys-environment/9780813548876 He is a widely published writer of short stories and poetry and has won numerous prestigious awards. He is also a frequent Op-Ed writer for the New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. ** The Weavers As so often happens, the blue sky dazzles at the edges, while the Andes impassively jut upward in the self-revealing light, and a thin ladder leans on a stone wall, already in the clouds, at rest in an altitude where surprise might take hold, whether climbing to survey as far as the eye can see in search of visions where only dreams draw breath, or back down to dinner and more familiar steps. In this space, three women kneel close together, their braided black hair draping over their bright mantles, as the shining sun cradles their whole lives, whether making love, raising children, or performing rites, as they hold a long crimson garment adorned with geometric shapes to sense and see its beauty and utility. They look for light in all they do and catch the common threads stitched each to each, binding them to other bodies and the hazy band of dust and gas that arcs all around, while they weave their stories at the boundaries. Daniel Benyousky Daniel Benyousky is a poet, English professor, and former therapist. His poetry and prose have been published in The Los Angeles Press, Global Poemic, Paideuma, and Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal, among other places. He writes poetry to remember who he is and to know those around him, where language might offer a geography of our experiences. ** Textile Makers Let me join you, I would love to entangle my text with your text-styling and learn from your craft how to weave wild thoughts into wearable cloths in the way you construct your graceful artifact. Oh, I missed, I didn’t stretch well, couldn’t catch the piece you extended and it fell on the floor; now on its own end upon cold stone but thus it can pass your palms’ warmth and keep this massive edifice engaged over your text-styling page I can see your undivided attention follows each minute threat of thought , while your swift fingers dash, pull, join and neat them all together at each point and every level: here the red leads the team and gifts the basic gleam, then the gold takes over and propels its shine in a sharp-minded rhombic line; one thread of thought astray – and it will all untangle in the sideway. I can now read your texting: you say you didn’t weave flowers or stars, but took the language of geometric forms, because this is how your mind cohered on the move all it loved into one common denominator – this serendipitous jazzy vector. Here is my replying texting: Your epic faces cohere all serendipitous senses – I feel the sublime perfection of your infinite absorption - you give it all, and the text-isle responds in full; that complete hearty connection I would have loved to join with my affection. But it wasn’t meant to be – the Graces are always only three. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dimitrova lives in London. She uses the publication name Ekaterina Dukas. A graduate in Philology and Philosophy, she is interested in the history of arts, ideas, culture and universalism, going back to Sanskrit sources. Considering poetry as man’s alter ego, she is an avid explorer of the metric word. Former educationist, she is now a volunteer at Victoria and Albert museum and at The British Museum for the interactive program Hands On. Her poems have recently appeared on The Ekphrastic Review and Poetrywivenhoe. Previously, her research on the medieval manuscript The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander was published by The British Library and subsequently awarded by questia digital library a position 9 in one of their periodical selections 16 of the best publications on illuminated manuscripts. ** Women Making Textiles In shades of mud this corner of a painted courtyard: doorways dark, ground – indeterminate – the shawls, stone walls and human faces: all earth coloured. The Andean village is cloaked in amber. Three women in its shelter, like rope makers, pass from hand to hand, a scarf of Prima Cotton, herring-boned, a patterned skin, colour of dried blood. How like a snake it looks, back zig-zagged with tyre marks, a martyred serpent which looped on racks of cactus lies on the supple wrists of women: strong featured, calmly checking every finished thread of textile woven on their working days: a ritual, of sorts, one of many skills of hand a life supplies in sacrificed, long zig zag patterns. Dominic James Dominic James (UK) lives in the Cotswolds near the source of the River Thames. A longtime short story writer he has concentrated on poetry over the last decade or so: recently published in Poetry Salzburg Review and Lightenup online, his collection, Pilgrim Station is available from SPM Publications. ** Practical Art Three women In a sun warmed room examine a long strip of finely woven cloth. They hold it gently, carefully, measuring the skill of the weaver in the order of the weave, approving the web of colors, testing the texture of the web, strong enough to depend on, thick enough to last. In this work they hold the treasured goal of a long apprenticeship that makes an art of useful things without elaboration: a simple form to please the eye and fit the hand, to comfort flesh, and satisfy the heart, that has its own requirements for creation. Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse whose life long love of visual art and writing makes ekphrastic work a particular favorite. Her work has appeared frequently in the The Ekphrastic Review, as well as in many other journals and anthologies. ** Authenticity It’s what you hung your hat on, celebrating primitive life with archaic materials, nonplussed by criticism you composed unadorned figures to honor ten thousand years of Peruvian tradition− spinning, dying, weaving delicate alpaca, llama, vicuña wool with the same intricate care with which they braid their long, dark locks. Warm earth tones radiate a sepia quality forcing the indigenous subjects to appear aged before their time. Narrow-minded contemporaries perceived you as subordinate, like the Mary Oliver of the South American art world, self-taught, deliberate in depicting your cultural identity; such a shame you were not lauded for your ingenuity and purity. Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino, Communications Director at South Shore Conservatory in Hingham, MA, has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Writing in a Woman's Voice, Haiku Universe, Global Poemic, Failed Haiku, and has won the monthly poetry challenge at wildamorris.blogspot.com. **  Get your ekphrastic prompt book and join our contest! Get your ekphrastic prompt book on women artists, with sixty spectacular artworks by women over the centuries. Click here for contest details or to get your ebook.
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